


Anchor (a place in a sea of stars)

by wajjs



Series: Across The Universe (vld fics) [29]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Arms of the Ocean Zine, Castaways, M/M, Shipwrecks, Zine, minor descriptions of injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:22:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21903682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wajjs/pseuds/wajjs
Summary: A cold breeze picks up and seems to embrace them in that moment.  Lance looks at him and Shiro meets his eyes; that instant feels like one in a million, like the last drop to make the full glass overflow.
Relationships: Lance/Shiro (Voltron)
Series: Across The Universe (vld fics) [29]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/726072
Comments: 5
Kudos: 27





	Anchor (a place in a sea of stars)

**Author's Note:**

> This is the uncut version of the fic I wrote over a year ago for the shance Arms of the Ocean zine! I'm happy that I can finally share it after so long, the research I did for this story definitely confused the google algorithm for a couple of months :-D

**anchor (a place in a sea of stars)**

The race of his heartbeat matches every slip, every trip, every time he dives to latch onto the closest railing whenever the ship sends him flying, holding on for dear life. His socked feet would’ve been uncomfortable in any other situation involving water, but now, now they are the last thing he can think about.

Now, all that is present, claiming control of the forefront of his mind, is getting to the main deck. His shirt clings awkwardly to his body and at times slows down his movements, and it just makes his desperation turn all the more real. Ever since the evacuation alarm blared throughout the ship, everything around him remained stuck in the fast forward button while he stays at a normal existing speed, and he doesn’t know how to catch up.

He dives to another railing, but his grip fails and he ends up scrambling for stability, going back towards his starting point. Water is pooling at his feet and that is definitely a bad sign — it’s rising faster, and if he doesn’t get the hell out of this hallway now then he won’t have another chance at getting to surface.

Cursing, he brushes his forebang out of his eyes and stares ahead, getting in his sight once more the nearest exit. Water keeps rising, he can’t lose another second, and so he goes for it, no time to look back or second guess his movements. To center himself in his mind and remain with his senses sharp, that is what he needs to do and for a moment he lost that focus.

Losing focus is losing himself. He can’t afford any more slip ups of that kind.

He rushes his steps and jumps to hold onto the stairs’ railing, gripping to them with all his might as to avoid falling again. From then on moving is somewhat easier, if not slippery and still too slow for the speed reality keeps moving in.

On the deck, the first thing he notices is the rain falling heavily on his face. He staggers as another wave rocks the boat far off to one side. He falls and yelps and is fast to rise again — where are the other passengers? They weren’t many aboard the ship, but where are they?

His heart stops for a minute, and his focus wavers again. What if they are all gone? What if… what if he’s the only one left? Or worse, what if they are all—

A new wave hits the side of the ship, throwing him on the wet floor of the deck, skittering until his back hits the other side of the deck. There are pieces of splintered wood everywhere, ropes snapping through the stormy winds like whips, and debris that goes wherever the rocking ship takes them. His yell is drowned out by thunder, and panic rises once again, trying to take control for the third time.

There’s no one on the deck with him, no one, and the more he stalls the tighter death’s grip on him is. And Shiro does not want to die.

He has to swipe his hand across his eyes to wipe away salt and rain, and he quickly brushes his forebang backwards so it stops blocking his vision. Heart hammering inside his chest, he looks to his right side and notices that not too far from him there’s a life vest on the floor. He rushes to grab it before another wave hits the boat and sends the vest flying who knows where — if worse comes to worst and he doesn’t manage to find an inflatable raft before jumping into the tumultuous water, at least he’ll still have something that will help him stay afloat.

Sure, it won’t help him for long if he’s stuck without foreseeable means of rescue, but it’s better than nothing.  _ It’s better than nothing. _

It’s clear as he’s putting the vest on that the boat is quickly sinking. It’s dark and all lights except the emergency ones have gone out, yet a voice in the back of his mind keeps reminding him to hurry up, unless he’s looking forward to sleep with the fishes. So he holds onto the railing for dear life and for the second time he looks around him, trying to find a spare raft, literally  _ anything _ he can use to make it out of there. 

The ship is tossed onto the side by another wave and a wooden box rams into his side. He yells, swallowing salt water and spitting it out immediately, lungs seizing. This is bad. This is terribly bad, and he didn’t—he didn’t expect this to happen, he didn’t even  _ think _ it would happen, he didn’t say  _ goodbye _ before sailing, he—

Shiro scrambles to his knees then, getting up despite the pain on his side, and limps to the railing, by sheer luck avoiding getting hit again. Gods, he’s such an idiot. He wasted such precious time going to the source of the explosion, or as close to it as he could, to make sure no one was there, and now he’s alone, alone in a sinking ship rapidly going down with no one by his side, with so many things waiting for him back home. Whoever once said he was an example of a put-together man had been so, so badly mistaken. He’s a wreck, a disaster, bigger than the sinking hole that’s rapidly forming. His hands are slipping on the railing and his failures and regrets are flashing before his eyes. Life vest or not, he’s not getting out of this one, is he?

A raw-throated yell breaks through his loss of calm and gives his panicked mind something to latch onto. It’s a flash of emotions seizing his chest, his lungs, his stomach; hope, fear, astonishment, disbelief, all fighting and crashing and drowning inside him as he looks beyond the ship towards the exploding, turbulent sea.

Intermittent under the unforgiving storm, the light of what’s probably a flashlight blinks at him from a safe distance. That’s—that’s his cue to finally jump out of the boat, afraid and tired and weary but determined to make it to that light that’s the lighthouse that saved him when he was just about to drown. 

He’s never been a strong swimmer, yet he’s sure he’s never coursed through water as fast and with such perseverance as he does now. Salt makes his eyes sting and is all he can taste but he’s finally close enough to the raft to notice the person on board of it. Whoever they are, they are Shiro’s saviour. He had been so afraid of being alone, of  _ dying _ alone, and now, to have someone be his beacon towards survival… He’ll never be able to thank this angel caught in the eye of the storm enough.

“Gotcha!,” the person exclaims and Shiro feels two hands tugging on his arm and his shirt, helping him onto the raft and out of the water. The flashlight rolls on the floor and as Shiro gathers his surroundings, the light lets him get a decent view of the face of his rescuer. “You ok?,” they ask even as they quickly try to examine what they can see of him, “You don’t look like you’re bleeding, which is good! Concussion?”

Shiro looks up from where he’s still lying in the raft, not quite managing to summon the will to sit up yet, and confusion flashes clear and obvious through his face. “Huh?”

“Concussion, man! Do you have one?,” the other asks again, this time rising the volume of their voice and shaking him by the arm a little, “C’mon, it’s important—” 

“I,” coughing, he finally brings himself into a sitting position, “I didn’t hit my head, so no…,” he wipes his face again, even though he knows it’s pretty much a worthless effort, “Are—are  _ you _ alright? Are you injured?”

“Oh thank gods, no,” a nervous laughter reaches Shiro’s ears. Before any of them has any chance of saying anything else, a wave hits them, and they can only hold onto the raft and hope to ride it out.

Seconds seem like an eternity to Shiro then. He wants nothing else but to be back on firm land. They soar again back above water, and before Shiro can open his mouth to ask if the other is still alright, he hears them shout:

“The flashlight, damn it!”

That’s all the warning they give before jumping out of the raft and towards the light that was floating away. He shouts at the person to come back, but either he isn’t being heard or he’s being ignored, and he watches in despair as they continue getting away from the raft and him and—

They reappear right next to him with a loud splash, throwing their arms over the border of the raft and ungracefully dumping something that doesn’t look like a flashlight on his lap.

“Found a flare,” it’s what the person says and laughs afterwards, still not climbing back into the raft, “Hey, what’s your name?”

With each second that this stranger doesn’t get back to the relative safety of the inflatable boat, Shiro feels his heart seizing in panic; he doesn’t want to be alone again. So, he rushes to reply, “Shiro, I’m Shiro. Let me help you back up—” 

“I’m Lance!,” the persons says, and Shiro’s hands falter as he’s reaching out, “So, hey, I’m gonna go look for whatever is useful that I can find, ok? Protect the raft and the flare, Shiro!”

And just like that, Lance is swimming away again, and Shiro can only helplessly watch him get lost in the water.

  
  


Perhaps nature’s finally taking pity on them, because in the time Lance is gone the raft isn’t submerged again by another rogue wave. Shiro  _ does _ protect the flare, since it’s so far the next best thing they have at signaling anyone of their whereabouts. And when Lance comes back… dread slowly releases its tight grip on his chest that was affecting his breathing. 

Dropping two closed bottles full of fresh water and a life ring onto the raft, Lance then climbs back inside, hissing a little as he does. Even with the storm mostly clearing up by now, and the few stars shining up in the sky, Shiro can still realize that the sluggish liquid trickling down Lance’s leg isn't sea water. No, to make their already bad situation worse, it's...

He stares wide-eyed as the other curses and scurries to the other end of the raft, bending his leg and pressing it closer to his chest. With all the salt, it surely must sting, and it takes Shiro a moment to realize that what's most important  _ right now _ is to stop the bleeding.

With his thoughts singing like a myriad of alarmed voices, he moves closer until he’s kneeling right in front of Lance.

“Let me see,” he goes for a calm tone of voice, but he isn’t sure if he hits the mark or if he’s way off.

“No, it’s—”

“ _ No, _ it’s  _ not _ alright,” frustration is quick to build up inside him in bubbly motions, and he gives himself a second to breathe in and out through his mouth before he rests his hands over Lance’s, that were holding his bent leg to his chest, “If it’s bleeding a lot, you’re going to need a tourniquet, and we can’t know that unless you  _ let me see _ !”

A cold breeze picks up and seems to embrace them in that moment. Lance looks at him and Shiro meets his eyes; that instant feels like one in a million, like the last drop to make the full glass overflow. It’s like air envelops them and pulls them together in the eternity of a lightless night. Not even the stars are there to guide them, yet it feels like millions of eyes are watching with bated breath, wondering what’s going to happen next.

It’s a moment in a million of moments, tiredness finally setting in, when Lance shivers and shifts his gaze to the side, relinquishing his grip on his leg to let Shiro inspect it. They are both cold and soaked to the bone, and without a flashlight in their possession anymore, Shiro has to lean closer in order to see the cut. He can’t determine if it’s too deep, but he can see through the large gash in the jeans that it expands over the length of the thigh, so even if it eventually stops bleeding naturally, it’s still the best course of action to apply a compress above the wound.

“Do you have anything I can tie around your thigh?,” he knows he himself doesn’t have anything except the clothes he’s wearing, but if push comes to shove, he’ll rip a strip of clothing off his shirt without thinking twice.

“I, uh, I don’t,” Lance licks his lips then, swallowing nervously, “There was, there was stuff everywhere and I hit something, and I should’ve looked for more stuff but...”

“Hey, no, it’s ok,” resting a hand on the other’s shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze, he looks down at the leg again, inspecting the cut once more, “I’m worried about—”

“Blood loss,” it’s barely above a whisper, but in such closeness Shiro can hear the reply without problem, “I know. Could make hypothermia set in faster. Read it on the wikihow page.”

“I… what?”

“Before sailing,” Lance wraps his arms around himself and takes off his shirt, his shivering becoming more pronounced as cold wind hits his skin. Clumsily, he rips off one of the long sleeves, helped by a tear in the fabric, “I… well, thought it’d be good to read in case something happened, and…,” taking a moment to vaguely signal around them with an outstretched hand, Shiro catches the hint of an indecipherable expression crossing his face, “yeah. Yeah.”

Wordlessly, Lance presses into Shiro’s chest the sleeve he tore off his shirt; honestly, Shiro doesn’t need words anyway to realize why he’s being handed that. Twisting the long strip of fabric in his grip, he squeezes out as much water as he can before wrapping it around Lance’s thigh, tying it above the cut with a tight knot. And really, not counting this wound, the two of them got off lucky — shipwreck aside. The only worry on Shiro’s mind now is his own prosthesis… it was bad enough when the emergency started that he hadn’t managed to recharge the battery, but he was also left with no choice but to submerge it in water, which is something anyone with a myoelectric prosthesis should  _ never _ do.

As their raft is adrift in the sea, waves and the motion of water carrying them who knows where, the world becomes a distant notion. Reality is nothing but them and their emergency boat, and the never ending sea around them. What does it matter if he can’t charge his prosthesis’ battery, what does it matter if hypothermia sets in? They are two lost souls in an ocean of stars, shining still, but drowning in the night.

Morning comes with the blessing of light. Rosy-fingered dawn makes the serrated edges of their fears smoother, and basks them in the early buds of warmth that their bodies sorely need. There’s an unshakable chill settled deep within their bones, that mixed with their thirst and hunger is making despair settle in faster than ever.

Lance stays curled up in his end of the raft, occasionally talking, making weak jokes and saying just about anything to make the hours go by faster, to keep the two of them awake. He can’t really move his leg anymore, and Shiro finds himself sickened by his morbid humour when he thinks that the two of them are minus a limb and finds that funny.

Not only was his prosthesis damaged beyond repair, but also he couldn’t really keep it on for longer than what he did. So now it lays useless in the floor of the raft, almost like a line dividing him and Lance. Which is… kind of ridiculous. But he doesn’t know how to surpass the awkward impasse they are in.

“I miss my family,” Lance whispers then, startling Shiro and making him look up at the other, finally truly  _ noticing _ him.

He looks worn out and scared, drowned like a dog stuck under the rain. His shoulders are hunched and he’s looking at an uncertain point in the distance, no hint of a forced smile stretching his thin lips. There’s something undoubtedly young in Lance, something hopeful, that’s losing luster as minutes go by. Still, in that moment, with the first rays of sunshine dousing over them, Shiro can’t help but think that above all, there’s a beauty that’ll last forever in the eternity of their shared voyage across the sea, in that small, inflatable raft.

“You’ll see them again,” he promises with such vehemence that it surprises him.

Perhaps surviving together is what makes him care as much as he does. Whatever the reason, Shiro finds himself believing in his promise, and he can only hope that Lance believes in it too.

They don’t last long staying apart. After a day went by, it becomes obvious to them that they needed to huddle together in order to stay warm.

Since Lance can’t bend his leg anymore (the wound is clearly infected), Shiro finds himself half sitting half lying against the other’s chest, deceivingly muscular arms wrapped around his torso. The difference is immediate: like this, the chill of the sea wind isn’t as strong, and it comes with the plus that this closeness eases the ever threatening feeling of loneliness, of being nothing but dust in the universe, putting it at bay. It’s comforting, soothing, and they are both going to cling onto that small ray of solace for as long as they can.

It’s already hard that they have to ration their water, and once one bottle is empty, they set up a rudimentary bowl for them to gather rain or drops of water thanks to humidity. Not running out of something safe to drink is a priority, comes even above finding food. It might not provide much, but it’s definitely better than nothing.

Days are painfully long, and nights even more so. They might be going a little bit crazy, too. There’s no way to tell. And if true, at least they are going crazy together.

“What is the first thing you’d like to eat once we are back on land?,” Lance asks with a wistful tilt to his voice, right as they are in the middle of scarfing down the few fish they managed to catch.

Shiro smiles, absently thinking that their round blank eyes look like skittles. Chuckling at the thought, he replies: “Sushi.”

The sound of Lance’s laughter is like the last song on their newfound world of ocean and salt. Shiro decides then that it’s the best song he’s ever listened to while alive.

And then, there are some nights… some nights in which it’s like nature smiles at them. Then the sea is overfilled with colors and magic and  _ life _ : the thousands, millions, of stars shine down on them and fill everything with an air of magic and wonder. Fishes, sea creatures, all around them, surrounding them, swimming alongside them — and they breathe in the enchantment of the moment, let it splash their skins, let it bring marvel to their eyes.

“I wish I could take a picture,” Shiro murmurs, afraid of breaking the spell if he speaks too loudly, “how else would anyone believe me that this magic exists?”

“I’ll be there to confirm what you’re saying,” Lance grins and rests his chin on the crook of Shiro’s shoulder. Once, what feels like a long time ago, Shiro would’ve moved away from the intimate contact. Now, though, he can’t get enough of it. “I’ll be your witness, Shiro. Then everyone will believe you.”

If only moments like these could last more than the infinity in which they happen.

If only they could halt time and live in that perpetuity for longer…

Three days—maybe four days, five days, who knows? Days go by and their lips are dry and their throats are parched. Salt makes everything sting and invades their senses. There’s this desperation, there’s this sinking lunacy slowly convincing them that they’ll never be rescued, that they’ll never be found. Maybe no one’s looking for survivors of that shipwreck. Maybe everyone believes they are long dead. Maybe they never had a life on land, maybe they never existed, maybe they were never there. And Shiro’s scars throb like they did when he got them, and Lance’s leg stinks with a growing infection.

They are both trembling with fever and a whole lot worse for wear. Shiro removes the tourniquet around Lance’s thigh and the other screams in pain. Things are definitely not looking up for them. The flare is on the other end of the raft, thrown on the floor, mocking them with the false promise of a future rescue.

The dehydration doesn’t help. The lack of so many things doesn’t help. They continue holding onto each other, Shiro rubbing his hands in soothing circles over Lance’s back. His promise, made in a haste back during their first hours together, comes back full force to haunt him, taunt him, mock him.  _ You’ll meet your family again _ , that had been such a foolish thought. They are not coming out of this experience alive.

So they lay down together on the raft, mindful of Lance’s leg. Sometimes Shiro uses his broken prosthetic as a rowing, making the inflatable boat move just a tad bit faster. He doesn’t do it often, though, since it scares away the fish and they can’t let that happen; after all, only the fish have been with them in this watery peregrination, only fish have kept them company and witnessed their desperate needs, while still being their only means of sustenance.

Lance traces with the tips of his growing nails the scar across Shiro’s face. His blue, effervescently oceanic eyes follow the path his fingers make on Shiro’s dry skin. They are so close they can smell the salt caking each other’s hair. They find that they don’t really care.

Shiro smiles and Lance smiles back at him. Maybe it’s the fever talking, but Shiro swears that Lance is an angel adrift at sea.

“If we get rescued...,” he whispers, and Lance laughs.

“It’s no longer a  _ when _ ?,” and the wisdom in those eyes leaves Shiro breathless.

“ _ If _ we get rescued,” he presses on, feeling urgency crawling its way up his toes, making his stomach tingle, “will you go out with me then?”

And Lance is still smiling, glowing with fever and cheeks less round, more sunken in.

“I’ll go out with you now, if you ask me.”

“Promise?”

Shiro’s sure he’ll never get enough of Lance’s sunkissed skin. He kisses the place between those thickening eyebrows, feeling the heat of the high temperature on his lips.

“Promise.”

Shiro’s sure he’ll never get enough of Lance’s sunkissed skin. He kisses the place between those thickening eyebrows, feeling the heat of the high temperature on his lips.

“Promise.”

They fall asleep holding hands. Between the cold and their fevers, staying awake keeps becoming more and more of a struggle. Still, they push through, because some silly part of their human nature is stopping them from absolutely giving up. Like their bodies have been so thoroughly hardwired to try and survive, than even when they are in a situation like this one, they just can’t drift into sleep and wait for the next big storm to carry their chilly bodies onto a prodigal shore.

The gentlest touch of dawn rouses them from their fitful slumber. Lance struggles to unstuck his heavy eyelids, but when he does, every feeling of pain, every minimal throbbing in his body disappears as if by magic.

It’s the most glorious sight he’d ever thought he’d live to see: breaking the surface of water with a millenial grace, taking over the horizon and just about everything he can see, whales swim beside them, in a safe distance from their little raft. Their distinctive fins are like a blessing to sore eyes, and he can’t contain his happiness. This is… this is like an oceanic paradise.

Ultimately, it’s Lance’s soft gasp the one that wakes up Shiro at last and makes him open his eyes. He has vague memories of falling asleep watching the other all throughout the night, and now, instead of Lance’s face, the first thing he sees is that the other man is sitting up, facing something at his back.

He’s still trying to gather the energy to move into a sitting position himself when Lance shakes him gently, his grip lacking any kind of strength.

“Shiro!,” he half laughs, half exclaims in jubilation, “Shiro, come on! Look!”

It’s basically a herculean task, but he manages to do it: sitting up, he also turns to face the direction the first rays of sunshine are coming from. The sight there stuns him into silence. Every sensation dissipates, the entirety of the world and time and the universe coming into a halt, Lance’s warmth the only thing anchoring him right to that raft, floating in the middle of the sea.

“Whales!,” Lance laughs with such vitality in a surprised cascade of tears, and the laughter is wobbly and watery and bubbly, salty like the ocean all around them. Shiro would cry too, if he could move on from his initial state of surprise. He shares Lance’s excitement with no reservations.

Gods and stars above, they truly are majestic. They make them feel alive, they return hope to their weary and tired hearts. Shiro holds onto Lance’s hand and never lets go. Lance squeezes it once, and keeps crying, his laughter even more elated than before. Nature hasn’t abandoned them, that’s what it feels to them that the whales are saying. The world hasn’t turned its back on them.

One of them dips into the sea and only their tail break the surface. It’s nothing but a couple of seconds that they’ll always remember, this heartfelt goodbye, and Shiro’s crying now too as Lance waves at the whales, watching them swim away from their sights.

It’s a risk that Shiro takes, then, glancing away from such glorious retreating forms to look at Lance. And it’s in that moment that he realizes that Lance is just as beautiful, if not more: so hopeful, so full of joy and vitality and stubbornness to ever give up hope. He stops breathing for an instant, and that’s when Shiro realizes he’s falling in love.

  
  


They are still winding down from their excitement when it happens:

In the distance, but still well within their sights, they notice small boats with people in them.

They scream at them, but their throats are raw and parched. Shaking so much that his teeth are chattering, Shiro rushes to the other end of the raft where the flare layed, almost forgotten once. He hands it to Lance, who in a similar state almost drops it, and then Lance activates it, shooting it into the air.

And they scream again, waving their arms, and the people from afar scream at them and start rowing their boats towards them.

This is it, Shiro thinks, and turns to look at Lance with tears in his eyes: this is  _ it _ .  _ They’ve made it _ .

And Lance looks at him as well and his laughter is pearlescent and embracing.

They’ve made it.

Together.

—

**Author's Note:**

> There are a couple of things I couldn't include in the story because of the zine's theme (and also rating), but I still feel like I should say that the descriptions here are not entirely accurate - both Shiro and Lance, had they been real people in a real life situation, would technically be in far worse conditions than the ones I depicted in the story (human skin + sun + salt = not a good combination).
> 
> Unfurtonately, since all the research that went behind this fic was done over a year ago, some of the links to the articles I found no longer work. There's [this article](https://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-1340-5-things-i-learned-about-survival-while-i-was-lost-at-sea.html) that helped me _a lot_ when writing this story, from the perspective of a survivor that went through this situation. Shiro thinking of skittles upon looking at the fishes' eyes was definitely inspired by it.
> 
> I simply wanted to make sure everything was as believable as possible while still respecting the rating of the zine and the general theme of comfort! It probably is a weird story idea considering the theme, but well, that's just how my brain be sometimes :-D
> 
> Hopefully, you found this story enjoyable. Thank you for reading!!


End file.
